The Destiny Of The Doctors: Part 1
by EssexLad1975
Summary: First ssegment of this Doctor Who story. Is this the beginning of the end for the Doctor as he's put to one final and potentially deadly challenge that face all his incarnations. Prologue through to Chapter 3
1. Prologue

PROLOGUE  
The searing pain which had racked through every fibre of the Master's being finally subsided. He felt weak and giddy, and for some reason, he had the feeling that he was floating. With a shock, he realised that he was also paralysed and his whole body felt numb. Try as he might, he could not move a muscle. How had he come to be in such an undignified situation? What had happened to him?   
  
Slowly, he opened his eyes, and there before him....a pitch black void of nothingness. Glancing around, he realised with horror that his body no longer existed, it must have somehow been destroyed, but by what or whom? Who, in the entire universe would be capable of such a deed? Suddenly the Master remembered. He had fallen into the Doctor's Eye of Harmony, the vast power source which enabled his enemy's TARDIS to travel through time and space.   
  
Painfully, the memories of his last encounter with the meddlesome Doctor flooded back to him. The Master had finally been captured by the Daleks and put on trial for an earlier betrayal. They sentenced him to summary extermination and the sentence was quickly carried out. Imprisoned within beams of light, the Master's body was completely disintegrated, but for the renegade Time Lord it wasn't the end.   
  
Just before capture, the Master had ingested a snake-like entity known as a morphant. Morphants were creatures that were capable of sustaining a being's life essence for a limited time, and so the Master lived on, albeit in liquid form. The Doctor, at that time nearing the end of his seventh incarnation, had travelled to the Dalek planet, Skaro and stolen the casket which contained the Master's ashes. He intended to convey the remains of his mortal enemy back to their home planet of Gallifrey.   
  
However, the casket did not just contain ashes, but the Master/Morphant creature as well. Slithering into the TARDIS control console, the Master forced the Doctor to make an emergency landing on Earth. Once there, the Master/Morphant escaped and took possession of a San Francisco Paramedic's body, but it soon started to decay.   
  
The Master needed the Doctor's body to save his own life, and a last pitch battle with the newly regenerated Eighth Doctor ensued. During their confrontation, the Master was toppled into the Doctor's Eye of Harmony and his host body was completely destroyed. Another desperate gamble had failed.   
  
"So, that's how I've come to be in this place" the Master thought to himself, and then something else occured to him, and it presented the possibility of escape from this limbo he found himself trapped in.   
  
"If I am trapped within the Doctor's TARDIS, then I can communicate with it's telepathic circuits!" if the Master had lips he would have smiled at his own ingenuity. "I will be free of this void". And then he would plot an exquisite revenge on the Doctor. Closing his non-existant eyes, the Master reached out with his disembodied consciousness.   
  
"TARDIS!" he commanded. "Find me Siralos!" 


	2. Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE - TAKEN OUT OF TIME  
Siralos was a planet-sized mass of malleable pscychic energy, and because of it's vast potential for misuse, the Time Lord's had kept it's location a well hidden secret. However, not even they could stop someone as determined as the Master from learning it's whereabouts.   
  
The Eighth Doctor reclined in his favourite armchair, casually flicking through a first edition copy of Charles Dickens's "Hard Times". Beside the chair stood an old antique table, which had a gramophone placed on top of it. Idly, the Doctor tapped his foot to the sounds of a jazz quartet. Like his previous incarnation, the Eighth Doctor had retained his love of jazz. Around him, the background hum of the TARDIS was reassuring.   
  
In his Eighth incarnation, the Doctor was a tall man with a friendly face and long curly hair. He was dressed in a dark brown frock-coat, over a white wing collar shirt, a pale blue cravat tied at his neck. A smart beige waistcoat and grey trousers completed the ensemble. The Eighth Doctor possessed a gift for slight of hand, and had a quiet, almost shy nature, but his compassion for all living things remained strong.   
  
A chime sounded from somewhere in the shadows of the console room's vast, cathederal-like vaulted roof. The Doctor looked up from his book, and glanced at his pocket watch. Right on time!   
  
The familiar rattle of the time rotor echoed around the console room as the TARDIS landed. The Doctor always looked forward to the first exciting step outside the TARDIS. Suddenly a deep booming filled the air. In an instant, the Doctor dropped his book and sprinted to the TARDIS console. He glanced up at the monitor screen on it's flexible z-spring. It read:   
Destination: Siralos. Pre-Set Journey  
"That's odd!" the Doctor said aloud. He had been planning a return trip to his home planet Gallifrey to inform the High Council of the Time Lord's of the Master's ultimate fate, but this was not Gallifrey, and the TARDIS had been deliberately piloted to Siralos, but by whom? A terrible suspicion began to form in the Doctor's mind. Had the Master really been destroyed? The renegade Time Lord had cheated death so many times in the past, was it possible he had somehow done it again? The Doctor hoped not.   
  
The Master felt the presence of the mighty mind-planet as soon as the TARDIS arrived. Through the telepathic circuits, he had got the Doctor's TARDIS to hover above the planet's surface. In order to merge his mind with the huge pscychic sphere below, the Master would have to project his entire consciousness through space. It was a risky gamble, even by his standards, but it would have to be done, otherwise he would remain forever as a non-entity.   
  
"What can't be cured, must be endured!" the Master chuckled to himself. Summoning up every last piece of his formidable willpower, he launched himself into space between Siralos and the TARDIS.   
  
The Master felt the powerful energies swirl around him as he entered the very core of Siralos. The pressure of the huge pscychic entity amalgamating with his mind was almost too much to bear, even for a Time Lord, but the Master's mind had always been incredibly strong.   
  
A sudden burst of excrutiating pain lanced through the Master's synapses as Siralos attempted to expunge his unwanted presence, but the renegade Time Lord was stronger, and Siralos became one with his consciousness. Siralos had been completely absorbed into the Master's mind.   
  
"Mighty Siralos, I the Master command you now" the Master intoned. "I must have a new body!" Nothing happened. "Siralos, I am your Master, and you are but a slave, now obey and regenerate me!"   
  
The Master increased his own willpower and Siralos's last reserves of defiance dissipated. The pscychic planet obeyed it's Master's demand. A strange energy began to surround the Master's disembodied consciousness, and a roughly humanoid shape began to form in the centre. Slowly, the figure grew in definition and the Master's mind was once again housed in a host body, but this time there was a difference, the Master's new body would not decay. At long last, he was whole again. He sighed in relief and flexed his black gloved fingers. A thought suddenly occured to him:   
  
"Mirror!" he commanded. "I don't trust you entirely yet Siralos, I must know what I look like!" A large mirror, taller than the Master himself appeared out of thin air, and he stood back in amazement.   
  
Siralos had generated a replica body of the Master as he appeared after he had stolen the Trakenite Consul, Tremas's body, and it seemed that the planet had made one or two improvements.   
  
The Master's once trade mark black hair and beard had been replaced by a more elegant shade of silver-grey, perhaps Siralos was appealing to the Master's sense of vanity.   
  
"My, how I've aged over the centuries!" he chuckled. He had to admit to himself though, that a slightly more mature look did suit him. He found it rather civilized. He turned sideways to the mirror and scowled. "Hmm, it seems I've put on weight too!".   
  
Something else had changed about the Master too, his costume. Siralos had attired him in a burgundy casual jacket over a black collarless silk shirt, over which he wore a silver waistcoat. Black trousers and a matching high collared cloak with silver brocade completed the ensemble.   
  
The Master was pleased with his new appearance. Snapping his fingers, he made the mirror disappear.   
  
"Now Siralos, I must be comfortable!" A high backed chair appeared, flanked to left and right by two large obsidian obelisks. In front of the chair, which more correctly resembled a throne, two candles burned in their respective holders. The Master smiled at what he saw.   
  
The Doctor crawled out from underneath the TARDIS console, cradling a jumble of loose circuit boards, which trailed wires. He still could not make sense of the situation. Suddenly, the TARDIS gave an enormous lurch to one side, sending the Doctor and his circuit boards flying. The Doctor ended up wrapped around the legs of his armchair, the circuit boards still clutched protectively in his arms.   
  
The time rotor began to rise and fall, the TARDIS was once again in flight. The heavy peal of the cloister bell began to echo throughout the TARDIS. The Doctor's ears popped and he noticed that his limbs suddenly felt a great deal heavier. The circuit boards clattered onto the parquet floor.   
  
A sudden feeling of nausia gripped the Doctor and he found that he couldn't summon the energy to get to his feet. His head began to spin, as the TARDIS console room began to dissolve in a whirlpool of blinding light. The Doctor's head fell with a thud against the floor and he knew no more.   
  
The Master eagerly watched the events in the Doctor's TARDIS, and why not? After all, he had been responsible. Surrounded by the energies of Siralos, the Master rubbed his hands in anticipation.   
  
"Excellent, Siralos!" he exulted. "You have done my bidding and taken that particular incarnation of the Doctor out of time altogether, where he will be useless to his other selves".   
  
A terrible plan had formed in the Master's mind. The Eighth Doctor would remain frozen out of time until all his past incarnations had been destroyed, and then the Master would exact a final and decisive revenge on his oldest adversary. But he would be humiliated first.   
  
The Master could not resist the urge to gloat at Siralos. "Mighty orb, planet of pure mental energy, I the Master have harnessed the majesty of your pscychic intellect and made you my puppet. Through you I shall fulfill my destiny to bend the universe unto my will!".   
  
The Master closed his eyes in concentration, as he plotted the Doctor's downfall.   
  
"To begin, I shall summon the seven complete incarnations of the Doctor, a Time Lord, who more than any other, has sought to frustrate my destiny. The Doctor's seven past incarnations shall be summoned hither, where they shall be my prisoners, to be dealt with as I see fit!".   
  
The energies produced by the Master's dark thoughts crackled across the surface of Siralos, like lightning flashes in the sky.   
  
"I shall encapsulate the Doctor's pscyche within the depths of the Determinant, the domain I have created through your conquered will, and I shall systematically erradicate all past and any futures of the one who has sought to undermine my supremacy".   
  
Getting to his feet, the Master raised his hands into the air and chanted. Through his incantations, the deadly plan was put into effect.   
  
At a single thought from the Master, a holographic projection appeared before him. He wanted to see the faces of his arch-nemesis. The first image showed small, dark-haired man in a straw Panama hat, wearing a tweed sports jacket, leather patches at the elbows, over an expensive white silk shirt and complementary black felt tie. A gold fob-watch chain hung from the pocket of his burgundy waistcoat. "Ah, the most recent! So busy setting plans and traps, he fails to see those set for him!".   
  
The image changed to show a rather chubby man with a mop of curly blonde hair, attired in a garishly multi-coloured patchwork frock-coat, bright yellow trousers and green neck-tie. A cat badge was pinned onto his lapel. "Oh look, the blustering one in the stupid coat, how he struts and gloats!".   
  
In his fifth incarnation, the Doctor was a slender, fair-haired young man, with a pleasant open face. He wore the costume of an Edwardian cricketer; striped trousers, fawn blazer with red piping, white cricketing sweater and an open-necked shirt. There was a fresh sprig of Celery in his button-hole. "Wait, there's the nice one! Such charm, such innocence, such naiveté, such a fool!"   
  
The image changed again to that of a tall curly haired man with wide staring eyes and a toothy grin. He wore a burgandy russian trenchcoat over a wide lapelled shirt, complemented by a gold and purple waistcoat. A broad brimmed soft hat was jammed on the back of his head, and an incredably long red and purple scarf looped about his neck and trailed along the ground in his wake. This was the Doctor in his fourth incarnation. "The bohemian! The wanderer! One so keen to abandon his roots, that he abandoned his senses!"   
  
Once more the image changed. This particular Doctor was a tall figure with a young-old face and a mane of white hair. He wore a red velvet smoking jacket and an open-necked ruffled shirt. The third Doctor was something of a dandy. "Now, there was a worthy opponent! Such cunning, such ingenuity, all wasted through that stubborn streak of goodness!"   
  
The next incarnation of the Doctor appeared on the screen. An odd-looking little fellow in a shabby old frock-coat, and rather baggy check trousers. Untidy black hair, hung in a fringe, over his forehead, and his eyes seemed humerous and sad at the same time. "The comedian! But a competant comedian at that. Not quite the clown he looks, this one."   
  
At last, the final image appeared. A white haired old man in an old-fashioned frock coat and wing-collared shirt. He had an old face, lined and wrinkled, yet somehow alert and vital. He had a commanding beak of a nose, which gave him a haughty, imperious look. He stood in a characteristic pose, gripping the lapels of his frock-coat with both hands. "And there's the first! Such wisdom, such intellect, but oh what a bore the fellow was."   
  
Now that the many different faces of the Doctor had been shown to him, the Master was ready to activate the Determinant. Siralos, completely within the Master's thrall, was helpless to resist. A vast amount of psycho-kinetic energy flooded out of the planet and seeked out each of the respective Doctor's in their own timestreams.   
  
The Master sat back in his throne and waited for the fun to begin. 


	3. Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO - THE DETERMINANT  
Within the confines of San Francisco's Walker General Hospital, was the morgue. In body room number eight, the seventh Doctor lay on a gurney, seemingly dead. His body had suffered a major seizure during an operation to save his life, after he had been gunned down, soon after arriving in the city. He was covered in a white shroud and was waiting for the regenerative process to begin, when suddenly, his lifeless body vanished. The first player in the Master's deadly game of revenge had been lifted from his appropriate time zone and deposited within the Determinant.   
  
Outside, in the hospital, time froze.   
  
The Doctor slowly allowed his eyes to open, ever so slightly. Quickly, he closed them again. He felt disorientated, and a strange electrical buzz filled his ears. The Doctor tried to remember what had happened. He opened his eyes fully and looked around himself. He was lying sprawled out on the floor of a dark and brooding alleyway. The sound of traffic was all around him, obviously he had arrived in a big city somewhere, but why was he laying down?   
  
The Doctor sat up on one elbow. He had a terrible feeling of foreboding, a feeling that he shouldn't really be there at all. Reaching out with his hand, he picked up his well loved Panama hat and threw it onto his head. A little shakily, he got to his feet, and realised that he had been leaning against the door of the TARDIS. As he went to open the door, his faithful transport vanished into thin air.   
  
"Well, I didn't do that!" he exclaimed.   
  
Thunder rumbled overhead, with the promise of a storm. The Doctor held out his palm, and something fell from the sky and clattered on the floor by his feet. It was a black umbrella, with a stylised question mark handle. The Doctor himself had owned just such an umbrella once. Suddenly another fell from the sky, and another, and another, and soon the Doctor was running for shelter as a torrant of umbrellas pelted down on him from above.   
  
The Doctor found refuge inside an old brick doorway to a boarded up shop. Where in the universe did it rain umbrellas? The background noise of the city faded away into silence. Cautiously, the Doctor ventured out of his hiding place.   
  
The Master chuckled at the look of bemusement on the Doctor's face. The umbrella storm was a nice touch, he thought. Now it was time to really challenge his enemy.   
  
The Doctor circled the area of ground where the TARDIS had but moments ago stood. Who was capable of hi-jacking a TARDIS? The answer was any number of entities. The Time Lords perhaps, or the Guardians, or maybe a Chronovore. A sudden gust of wind blew the Doctor's hat off. A heavy gale was blowing through the alleyway, causing the Doctor's jacket to flap about him madly. The savage wind swirled about him, pulling him in all directions. Suddenly, it subsided and mocking laughter echoed all around him. Familiar laughter.   
  
"Oh no!" The ground beneath the Doctor's feet collapsed inwards, and he tumbled into a black void.   
  
The Doctor lost track of how long he had fallen head over heels through nothingness, when a silver, metallic floor suddenly rushed up to meet him. He landed in an undignified heap, legs sprawled out behind him. The metal floor was cold, but it gave off a faint electronic hum. The Doctor rubbed his bruised head and tried to remember where he had heard that sound before. Getting to his feet, he realised that he was in a long stark corridoor. The Doctor followed the corridoor along until he came to a large metal door. A kind of pressure pad was placed at mid-height next to the door. The Doctor placed his palm against the door. Nothing happened. Reaching into his sports jacket he produced his sonic screwdriver. The small device buzzed as he held it's tip against the pad. The pad blew off the wall in a shower of sparks and scorched wiring.   
  
The door whispered open, and the Doctor stepped into a huge, dark, circular chamber beyond. It was some kind of amphitheatre. A circular disk was situated in the centre of the floor on the bottom level. The Doctor peered into the gloom.   
  
The Doctor remembered now where he was. He was standing in the Imperial court chamber on the Dalek homeworld of Skaro. It was on that disk, where his arch-nemesis the Master had been imprisonned and later put on trial. The Daleks had calmly and efficiently exterminated his existence.   
  
All the lights in the chamber suddenly blazed on, and each tier of the amphitheatre contained an unbroken line of Daleks, their gunmetal grey shells shining brightly in the harsh light. Thousands of eye-stalks stared coldly at the Doctor, and likewise the same number of weapons were aimed at him. Quickly spinning round to escape the way he had entered the chamber, the Doctor's path was barred by a cream and black shelled Dalek.   
  
"Stay where you are!" The Dalek intoned in it's grating and distinctive voice. "Do not move, or you will be exterminated!"   
  
The Doctor grinned at the abonination in front of him.   
  
"Daleks!" he mused. "You never did learn the art of conversation, did you?"   
  
The Doctor stared hard into the lense on the end of the Dalek's eye-stalk. "I wiped out your miserable race once" a sudden frown passed across the Doctor's face. "Or at least, I think I did."   
  
The Doctor turned away from the metallic monster and glanced up at the dizzying heights of the chamber. Where was the crippled, twisted genius behind his most hated of foes. The Doctor spun around and prodded the Dalek's shell.   
  
"Where's Davros?" he asked.   
  
"My dear Doctor" a smooth and cultured voice replied. "It isn't Davros or the Daleks that you should concern yourself with!"   
  
The Doctor turned to face the voice. The Master stood proud and erect on the disk, hands behind his back. The Doctor stared long and hard at his enemy. The neat hair and beard were the same, but it was the Master's eyes and teeth that had changed. His eyes were those of a cat, and two long, sharp canines glinted in his mouth.   
  
"So I see you escaped from the Cheetah planet's destruction" the Doctor said in a conversational manner. "But the memory lingers on"   
  
The Master nodded. "Quite so, Doctor!" the Master retorted. "The Cheetah DNA corruption continues to ravage my body"   
  
The Doctor looked grave. "You're still turning into an animal!"   
  
"One day I shall forget everything, I shall succome to my base instincts, and then...." the Master lost his train of thought, and the Doctor realised just how much strain he was under trying to keep the Cheetah enchantment at bay.   
  
"He's worn out!" the Doctor thought to himself.   
  
"But my will is strong, Doctor!" the Master stated, as though he had caught the thought. "That is why I shall destroy you while I am still able to!"   
  
The Doctor glared into the Master's eyes. "The hunt!" he snapped.   
  
The Master's eyes blazed with pure savagery. "Yes!" the Master snarled, gnashing his pointed teeth.   
  
"The chase!" the Doctor continued. "The smell of your enemy on the wind, the fatal blow, the taste of your enemies blood in your mouth!"   
  
The Master arched his back and howled, a terrible, inhuman wail.   
  
"Go hunting!" the Doctor cried at the top of his voice, and the Master tensed every lithe muscle in his body and then leapt into the air, where he vanished, carried back to the hunting grounds on the planet of the Cheetah people.   
  
The Doctor glanced around himself. The Daleks were all standing silent and unmoving. He was certain now that someone or something had been playing around with his timeline, but there was still a terrible unease at the back of his mind.   
  
"There's something terribly wrong here!" he sighed to himself.   
  
Slipping quietly past the dormant Dalek, the Doctor re-entered the long metal walled corridoor, and he stopped dead, thunderstruck. The TARDIS was sitting in the middle of an intersection of four corridoors. Cautiously, the Doctor approached the blue box. Could it be another trick of the Master's devising? Another illusion?   
  
The Doctor warily placed the tip of his right index finger against the TARDIS exterior. The door swung inwards and a big neon sign in bright pink flashed on and off in front of him.   
" LOOK BEHIND YOU "  
The Doctor turned on his heels, but not quickly enough to avoid the devastating firepower of the four Daleks which had quietly surrounded him. The force of the deadly energy beams blew the Doctor backwards into the TARDIS. The door closed behind him, and the TARDIS dematerialised.   
  
The Master was enjoying the destruction of his enemy.   
  
"No regeneration yet, Doctor!" he chuckled. "Your torments are just beginning!"   
  
The Doctor lay on his back on the console room floor, his face a tight mask of agony as the radiation from the Dalek's weapons coursed through his body.   
  
"No!" he screamed mentally. "Not like this! This is wrong!" Clenching his fists into balls, he rolled over and reached up towards the TARDIS console, but it was no good. His strength failed him, and he fell heavily back onto the floor. This time he did not get up.   
  
The Doctor felt a cool sensation moving across his forehead. Was he alive? He wasn't sure. He had the terrible feeling that he shouldn't be, but why? He risked opening his eyes. He was obviously lying down somewhere, because it was unmistakably a ceiling that he was looking at.   
  
A hand came into view, a hand which held a damp flannel. He felt the cool sensation once again on his forehead. Why was he being comforted? Why was it so difficult to move all of a sudden?   
  
A face appeared in his line of vision. It was a young female face, both hard and compassionate. Recognition dawned on the Doctor.   
  
"Ace!" he whispered.   
  
"You've been in the wars proffessor!" she said warmly. "Try to relax, I'll look after you"   
  
As she went to dab the Doctor's forehead again, he shot out a hand and grabbed her wrist in a vice-like grip.   
  
"What's happened to me? You're not even supposed to be here!"   
  
Ace prised apart the Doctor's fingers and placed his hand on his chest. He lifted his head and urgently looked at his surroundings. He was in a small room, tucked up inside a neat, clean bed. Someone had undressed him.   
  
"What is this place, and where are my clothes?"   
  
Ace put a finger to her lips. "Rest proffessor, and I'll explain everything!"   
  
The Doctor's head sank back onto the soft pillow. The room, he noticed was bathed in a cold blue light. He couldn't see any windows. To his left, a piece of machinery emitted a constant, regular beep, beep, beep. He glanced across at it.   
  
"Why am I hooked up to a heart monitor? It's hardly giving a correct reading for someone like me who has a bi-cardiovascular system!"   
  
Ace remembered that the Doctor had two hearts. "Proffessor, you're in hospital"   
  
"Hospital? Am I ill then?"   
  
"You could say that"   
  
"Really? Why?"   
  
"You've been shot!"   
  
The Doctor closed his eyes and said nothing. Ace had never seen such a defeated look upon his face before, in fact, he seemed resigned. His skin was deathly pale and cool to the touch.   
  
"Proffessor?" she ventured.   
  
Ever so slowly, the Doctor turned his face towards hers. He reached for her hand and took it gently in his. "Thank you for being here!" he said quietly.   
  
Ace gripped his hand tightly. She tried to say something, anything that could rally the Doctor's spirit, but words failed her.   
  
The Doctor shook his head sadly. "I'm dying, Ace!"   
  
"There must be something we can do!" Ace shouted in desperation. "Can't you regenerate?"   
  
"Not this time!" The Doctor's voice was getting weaker by the moment.   
  
A single tear ran down Ace's cheek and splashed onto the Doctor's face. "Please don't die, Proffessor!" she pleaded.   
  
The Doctor tried to raise a smile, but his energy, like his life was ebbing rapidly away. "Nothing lasts forever, not even a Time Lord!"   
  
"Daleks did this to you!" Ace spat the words out.   
  
The Doctor blinked, once. "So that's it!" he thought to himself. The Dalek firepower had overwhelmed his regenerative capacity. His body could not trigger the renewal process. It was all over.   
  
An icy numbness overtook his body, and it became increasingly difficult for him to think coherently. His Time Lord body was closing down, and a kind of peace settled over him. The Doctor thought he could hear his own voice talking to Ace.   
  
"And so Time's Champion takes his final bow, enter in, the eighth man bound!"   
  
Total darkness closed in around him.   
  
Ace watched in reverent silence as her friend slipped quietly away from her. She wondered if Time Lords went to heaven? She released the Doctor's hand and it dropped lifelessly back onto the bed.   
  
He was gone.   
  
Within the confines of Siralos, the Master coldly observed the events that he had orchestrated. He hadn't felt this good since he had destroyed Logopolis. He reached up with a black gloved hand and wiped away a non-existant tear.   
  
"Such a loss!" he stated solemly, and then burst into fits of laughter.   
  
The temperature in the small room had dropped considerably after the Doctor had died. A thin sheen of frost had settled over the Doctor's skin. Ace felt chilled in more ways than one. Without looking back at the bed, she ran from the room.   
  
The Doctor sat bolt upright in bed with a gasp. Beads of sweat had formed on his brow, and his breathing was fast, but he was alive.   
  
"Bad dreams, Doctor?" The Master stood at the foot of the Doctor's bed. "Did you think that I would let you off so easily?"   
  
The Doctor studied his adversary. "A new look! Another stolen body?" he enquired. "Not this time, Doctor"   
  
The Doctor glanced down at himself in bed. "Would it be too much to ask for, if I could perhaps be clothed?"   
  
The Master snapped his fingers and the Doctor's clothes appeared at the end of the bed. He watched the Doctor like a hawk as he got dressed. The Doctor smiled at him. "That's better!" he said. "Now then, what sinister little scheme are you involved in now, may I venture to enquire?"   
  
"Why naturally, your destruction, Doctor!" the Master purred.   
  
The Docctor gave an extravagant yawn "That's original, but I must warn you that I no longer have my old inclination to play games"   
  
The Master raised an eyebrow.   
  
"Like a fine wine, I've matured over the years!" the Doctor continued.   
  
The Master held up a hand for silence and chuckled. "But my dear Doctor, you are already playing a game!" he explained. "A game of my own devising, which will end with your total anhiallation!"   
  
The Doctor shook his head sadly.   
  
"Look around you Doctor!" the Master stated. "Notice anything different?"   
  
The Doctor couldn't believe his eyes. His surroundings had completely altered. The small hospital room had vanished, and now he and the Master were standing in the middle of a huge, grey, dusty plain. Mountains lined the horizon in the far distance, and there was no sign of any other life on the plain apart from the two rival Time Lords.   
  
"Do you recognise this place, Doctor?" the Master taunted.   
  
The Doctor knew exactly where he was, and it frightened him. "Yes! This is the wilderness beyond the Capitol" the Doctor stated flatly. "We're on Gallifrey!"   
  
The Master laughed and applauded the Doctor. "Just so!" he chuckled mirthlessly. "You havn't been here in a long time have you Doctor, I wonder why?"   
  
A chill ran down the Doctor's spine.   
  
"When was the last time you saw your family?"   
  
An all encompassing fear gripped the Doctor. "No please, not them!"   
  
The Doctor dropped to his knees in front of the Master. The ground beneath him began to tremble and shake as something huge began to push it's way up from below. The plain behind the Doctor erupted into the air as his old ancestral home, the forgotten house of Lungbarrow emerged from it's long burial and towered over him. The old and rotten timbers creaked loudly as the edifice settled into it's new position above the plain.   
  
The Master smiled cruelly down at the Doctor.   
  
"I'm still toying with you, Doctor. You amuse me, but be warned, the second I tire of you, will be your last!"   
  
The Doctor turned to face his old home. It's battered and warped front door screeched open on rusty hinges. He slowly got to his feet and glared at the house. The Master quietly moved beside him.   
  
"They're waiting for you, Doctor" he said softly.   
  
Without a backward glance at the Master, the Doctor strode purposefully up to the house's front door and went inside. The door slammed shut behind him and the house once again sank beneath the surface of the barren plain. It's wayward child had returned to it. 


	4. Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE - LUNGBARROW  
The Doctor trod carefully across the blood red carpet which covered the hall floor and climbed it's way up the main staircase. He didn't want to be discovered too soon, but in it's timbers, the house knew he was there.   
  
Old silver candleabras adorned the wood-panelled walls, and little mountains of tallow had formed on the carpet beneath them. The Doctor bent to study one of the little white mounds and a dark shadow fell over him. He looked over his shoulder at the imense form of a Drudge, one of the house's wooden, robotic servitors.   
  
The Drudge rumbled at him menacingly and pointed at a door, which moments ago had not existed. The Doctor rapped his knuckles against the Drudge's hard, wooden exterior. The creature simply picked him up by the scruff of his neck in one huge hand, opened the door with the other, and threw him into the room beyond.   
  
The Doctor landed like a sack of potatoes on a mouldy old grey carpet. A cloud of white dust floated in the air about him. Indignant, the Doctor turned to chastise the Drudge, but the soulless servant slammed the door shut in his face, causing an explosion of dust to once again billow around him.   
  
Coughing and spluttering, the Doctor stepped back and took in his surroundings. He was in a long, wood-panelled corridoor. Suddenly, each panel swung itself back to front to reveal a mirror. The Doctor found himself in a long, seemingly endless hall of mirrors. Cautiously, he approached one and looked at his reflected image.   
  
His reflection suddenly lunged towards him and grabbed him by the throat. The Doctor felt the fingers of his mirror image bite into the flesh of his neck. It was much stronger than he was and he felt himself being pulled inexorably towards the mirror. The glass rippled like liquid quicksilver, and the pressure around the Doctor's throat tightened.   
  
Something was happening to his mirror image, it began to liquify, like the glass had done, and before his eyes it took on the appearance of someone else. The Doctor stared into the hate-filled eyes of his cousin, Glospin. He ceased struggling and was pulled into the mirror, the glass surface rippling with his passage, and then it returned to solidity. All the mirrored panels turned back to show their wooden sides, and the corridoor remained silent and undisturbed.   
  
The Doctor found himself tied hand and foot to an old wooden chair. He was alone in a dark room, except for Glospin, who paced the floor in agitation.   
  
"Hello, cousin!" the Doctor began.   
  
Glospin rounded on the Doctor in fury and gave him a viscious backhanded slap across the face.   
  
"Why couldn't you have just stayed away?" he screamed in fury. "Why did you have to come back after all this time?"   
  
The Doctor frowned. "I did come back, not long ago, in fact!"   
  
Glospin spat into a corner of the room. "To Gallifrey perhaps, but not to Lungbarrow!"   
  
The Doctor regarded him quietly. "Glospin, I did return to this very house!"   
  
"You lie, wormhole!"   
  
The Doctor winced at hearing his old nik-name again. "Someone is interfering with your perception, cousin!"   
  
Glospin seemed to be holding council with himself. "He's ruined everything!"   
  
The Doctor strained to hear. "Ruined what, Glospin?"   
  
"Shut up, wormhole!"   
  
"You don't change do you?"   
  
"I'm warning you!"   
  
"Always plotting!"   
  
Glospin stamped his foot in anger. "Why couldn't you just stay away?" he fumed.   
  
The Doctor pondered the question for a long time, but gave no answer. This put Glospin in an even fouler mood.   
  
"Did I really do so much to make you hate me so, cousin?" the Doctor ventured at last.   
  
Glospin laughed, dryly. "Our great father, Quences, nears the end of his final regeneration. When he is gone, Lungbarrow will require a new Patriach"   
  
"A position you wish to fill!" the Doctor stated.   
  
"Exactly, cousin!" Glospin explained. "But your arrival has no doubt been reported to the head of the household already!"   
  
"I don't want the job!" the Doctor said flatly.   
  
Glospin laughed at the statement. "You won't have any choice in the matter, wormhole! You were always the favourite fruit of the loom!"   
  
"It doesn't matter Glospin, I shall refuse father, if he offers!"   
  
"Father won't accept me, he says that I will bring dishonour and shame to the great house of Lungbarrow!"   
  
"And will you?" the Doctor asked.   
  
"I have ideas, wormhole!" Glospin expounded. "Plans, dreams and visions for the future of Lungbarrow!"   
  
The Doctor listened to his ambitious cousin.   
  
"You want to make Lungbarrow great again, is that it?"   
  
"Lungbarrow deserves it!"   
  
"I see!"   
  
"Our family deserves it!"   
  
A look of utmost severity appeared on the Doctor's face.   
  
"Our family deserves nothing! We are greedy and selfish and arrogant and this whole rotten house deserves to be buried! Even the High Council recognised the stench of it!"   
  
Glospin made to butt in, but one look from the Doctor silenced him.   
  
"Lungbarrow is a cancer, and that is why it should remain buried and forgotten!"   
  
Glospin couldn't believe his ears. "How could you turn your back on your own family for so long?"   
  
"I'm claustrophobic!"   
  
"What's that got to do with anything?"   
  
"I became fed up with the same old ceremonies, the same old faces, and the same old opinions. I wanted to explore the world outside these walls, can't you understand that?"   
  
Glospin was silent.   
  
"I possessed the capacity of wonder, Glospin, and so one day, I simply walked out the front door!"   
  
Glospin laughed, cruelly. "The house won't let you casually stroll out the front door this time, wormhole!"   
  
A door opened and a small female entered the room. She gasped when she saw the Doctor.   
  
"The rumor was true!" she exclaimed.   
  
The Doctor's face lit up.   
  
"Cousin Innocet!" he smiled.   
  
Innocet looked uncertainly back at her long-lost cousin and then adressed Glospin. "Satthralope will see him now!"   
  
The Doctor had reservations about seeing his mother, the Matriach of Lungbarrow, after such a long absense. Glospin reluctantly freed the Doctor from his bonds, who doffed an imaginary hat at him.   
  
"Thank you, cousin!"   
  
Glospin glared at him and stormed out of the room.   
  
Innocet led the Doctor through a confusing series of corridoors, cloisters and hallways. The Doctor had the sensation that they were heading downwards, deep into the core of the old house. Innocet suddenly came to a dead stop. The hall in front of them was completely flooded, but a small coracle had been tethered to the handle of a half submerged door.   
  
"This is as far as I am allowed to go, cousin, you must travel the rest of the way on your own!"   
  
The Doctor nodded, straigtened his tie and cast a glance at Innocet.   
  
"Better look my best for mother!"   
  
Innocet smiled and reached out to touch his hand, but she suddenly drew back as though burned. The Doctor pulled her to him and gave her a warm embrace.   
  
"I've missed you too!" he said quietly.   
  
Innocet stared into his eyes. "Is it better outside these walls?"   
  
The Doctor smiled at her. "Sugar and spice, I suppose!"   
  
Innocet nodded. "You were brave to leave this place, the family wasn't very happy with you!"   
  
The Doctor changed the subject. "Do you still play hopscotch on the flagstone lawn?"   
  
Innocet grinned.   
  
The Doctor rummaged in his waistcoat pocket and handed her a piece of white chalk. "Play!" he stated.   
  
Innocet hugged him again and bounded away, back the way they had come. The Doctor watched her go, and he suddenly felt very sad and alone. With a big sigh, he climbed into the coracle. Laying on it's small wooden deck was a punt. The Doctor untethered the coracle, swung the punt into the water and pushed off. Each stroke of the punt propelled the little coracle along a dank and mouldy hallway. Family portaraits adorned the walls on both sides, and the Doctor could feel their eyes burning into him as he passed them by. They did not approve.   
  
The flooded hallway finally came to an end, and the Doctor climbed out of the coracle and made sure that it was securely tied to the base of a candleabra. Directly in front of him was an ornate door, with the crest of house Lungbarrow embazoned upon it. The Doctor took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and walked into his mother's room.   
  
Satthralope's room was as dark and depressing as the rest of Lungbarrow. A couple of candles guttered on the mantlepiece over an old marble fireplace. A large owl sat perched on top of a cobweb covered hat-stand. It silently regarded the Doctor, who in turn contemplated the elderly matriach who reclined in an old chair, busying herself with her knitting.   
  
The Doctor cleared his throat. "Hello, mother!" Satthralope continued with her knitting. "You seem rather pre-occupied mother, shall I come back later?" No reply was forthcoming. "What are you knitting?"   
  
Satthralope finally looked up from her knitting.   
  
"Would you like to see?" she croaked.   
  
Before the Doctor could answer, she stopped knitting and held up her handiwork for him to see. It was a vivid question mark emblazoned pullover, exactly like the one he had once worn in the early days of his current regeneration.   
  
"Do you remember this, son?" she asked acidly. "You wore it when you wiped out the Seven Planets system!" The Doctor trembled. "There was nothing I could of done to prevent that cataclysm. It was already written in history!"   
  
"Did you even bother to try?"   
  
"No, I...."   
  
"My son, a cold, heartless killer of worlds!"   
  
"Stop this, please!"   
  
"Do you still hear the screams every night when you close your eyes, of all those thousands upon thousands of people that you murdered?"   
  
A tightness gripped the Doctor's chest, and he fell to his knees, doubled over with the guilt that had just flooded back, a painful reminder of the darkest point in his life.   
  
Satthralope got up from her chair, her spine cracking as she straightened her old back, and threw the pullover across the room. Swift as a passing thought, the owl swooped down and tore it to pieces in it's sharp claws.   
  
The matriach of Lungbarrow stood over the Doctor, who knealt with his head in his hands.   
  
"Time's Champion, indeed!" she cackled, and in a quick movement she tore her own face off.   
  
The Master discarded the last of his disguise and looked at the Doctor contemptuously. "You no longer amuse me, Doctor!"   
  
The Doctor raised his head, in dis-belief. The Master produced a palm-sized cube, each face of which had a small circular window set into it and pointed it at the Doctor.   
  
At that moment, unseen by the Master, a semi-transparent, amorphous blob floated silently by and disappeared. For some unknown reason, the apparition filled the Doctor with hope.   
  
The Master laughed, heartily. "I desire entertainment elsewhere, Doctor, but you will be held until I deem your existance over!"   
  
A blinding rush of conical light surrounded the Doctor, and pulled him into the Master's cube. Each window now displayed the agonised face of the Doctor, encapsulated within.   
  
"You look a little stressed, Doctor!" the Master sneered. "Take some time out!"   
  
The cube vanished from his palm. With a single thought, the Master dissolved his Lungbarrow projection and returned to the nucleus of Siralos. "Siralos, my slave, you have pleased me thus far, but I thirst for more entertainment!"   
  
The Master closed his eyes and chanelled the planet's power once more. Another incarnation of the Doctor would have to face the perils inherent within the Determinant. 


End file.
